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This three-story Bay View home was built in 1905 and moved to this site when South Shore Park was created. The Nagle family loves the turn-of-the-century amenities, as well as the location.
Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A photo of Anna Nagles father, James E. Groppi, holding the hand of Lucia Rogers before an open housing march in 1967 is displayed in their living room. Anna Nagle grew up in Bay View.
Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mark and Anna Nagle live in a big blue house that they love for many reasons.

It was built in 1905, so it has a lot of the amenities typically added to homes of that era.

There’s an abundance of thick woodwork and molding, high ceilings, large windows, original hardwood flooring and an elegant built-in buffet in the dining room.

It’s spacious, too. With 2,000 square feet on three floors, the four-bedroom farmhouse gives them and their three children — Isabelle, 9, Leah, 7, and James, 5 — plenty of room to work and play.

They also love their home because it’s in Bay View, a neighborhood Mark has learned to love and where Anna grew up.

She is the daughter of the late civil rights activist James E. Groppi and the granddaughter of Giocondo and Giorgina Groppi, who were the original owners of G. Groppi Groceries in Bay View. The store is now called G. Groppi Food Market.

“The area is special to me mostly because of the store,” said Anna. “Half of it was a house where my grandparents lived, and I remember spending time there. … My mother, Margaret Rozga, also lived in the area for about 10 years.”

“I love the area too, mostly because it’s close to the lake and on a quiet street,” said Mark, who grew up in northern Wisconsin. “I also like the people. It’s such a friendly community. The people here are very down to earth.”

The couple, who are both MPS teachers, also love the fact that they have been able to do restoration work in their home.

Some of the projects they’ve done since buying the home in 2015 were to remove old linoleum, refinish hardwood floors and paint and replace screens.

“Just last summer, I restored eight windows on the first floor,” Mark said. “I had to find antique window weights and hardware” to do it.

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This Bayview home was featured on the show "This Old House" because of its unique cream city brick chimney.
Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

While they’ve done a lot on their own, one of their most interesting repairs was done by experts from the PBS program “Ask This Old House.”

“Last year I submitted a proposal to them and they decided to come and do a project,” said Mark. “They added a tankless hot water heater to help preserve our cream city brick chimney. It was an awesome experience.”

The episode ran Jan 18 but can be viewed online at thisoldhouse.com (Season 16, Episode 11). It also can be streamed though the PBS app.

The Nagles also enjoy the home’s interesting history and some of the odd decorating choices they encountered.

“Our house and another house on our block were originally located on the shores of Lake Michigan in what is now South Shore Park,” Mark said. “The house was moved in the ’20s to its current location to create the park.”

“When we moved here, James’ room on the second floor was purple — and it definitely was not a light purple,” said Anna. “We painted it a light gray and did the baseboards white. They were cream-colored.

“Leah’s room was peacock blue with baseboards that were teal — a really dark teal. We painted it a peach color with white baseboards.”

“There was also blue beadboard on the ceiling in the dining room,” added Mark. “We put drywall over that and painted it white and added crown molding. When we painted, we used all Benjamin Moore historical colors.”

The couple recently talked about their home and how proud they are of the restoration work they are doing.

Question: When the “This Old House” staff came to your home, what all went on?

Mark: The filming took about seven hours, and the work was done by Richard Trethewey, who is the plumber and HVAC expert, and Mark McCullough, who is the masonry expert. A local company, Budiac Plumbing, assisted in the project.

They added a tankless hot water heater to help preserve our chimney. The old water heater was venting though the chimney, and there was no liner in it, so it was deteriorating the brick.

They inspected the chimney and said we could leave it, but if we wanted to use it one day, we would have to put a liner in it. The brick is exposed in the basement, and you can see it in a storage area off the third-floor bedroom.

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Experts from "Ask This Old House" saved the home's cream city brick chimney, shown here in the attic, by installing a tankless water heater.(Photo: Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Q. Have you run into any snags when doing work in your home?

Mark: There was wallpaper over plaster in the master bedroom. When we tried to take it off, all the plaster came off, too. I had to put up drywall.

Q. What are some of the other changes you’ve made?

Mark: I’ve been stripping paint off all the doors. I’ve been doing one door each summer when I’m not working. I’ve stripped four to five layers of paint off each door.

I’ve also been taking all the hardware off doors and cabinets and stripping it. Fortunately, on many of the projects we’ve done, we’ve been getting help from my parents, Bill and Chris Nagle. They’ve painted, stained and helped with the windows.

Q. Did you find any odd structural changes in your home?

Mark: On the second floor there’s a storage area that leads to a porch that was closed off. It has no railings, but we can watch the fireworks at Humboldt Park from there on the Fourth.

We also have a pantry off the kitchen, and we believe that at one time you could walk through it to the front of the house. Now there is a bathroom on the other side of it.

Q. You have a variety of artwork. Can you describe some of the pieces?

Anna: The picture in the living room was in The Milwaukee Journal. It shows my dad holding the hand of Lucia Rogers before an open housing march in 1967.

We have other photos of my dad that were in newspapers or magazines. We also have art that was done by Mark’s sister-in-law, Angie Nagle, who is a local artist. We have one of her pieces in our bedroom. I like the colors and that it’s simple and it goes well with our blue walls.

Q. Any changes yet to do?

Mark: We want to completely refinish the hardwood floor in Isabelle’s room on the third floor. The front porch also needs a fair amount of work. There is plenty still to uncover, as much of the original house is still buried behind wood paneling and under carpeting.

We want to bring back some of the original spacing, too, as a wall or two may have been added over the years. I would also like to restore the home’s original fireplace. However, with three kids running around, these are not easy tasks. For now we are just enjoying it and are thankful to live where we do.

Q. Where was the fireplace?

Mark: I think it was in the dining room but that it was covered by a corner cabinet during the moving process.

We also want to open up the staircase, as we think it was closed in at some point, and we want to add windows in the TV room that’s opposite our living room. I believe the house faced the opposite way before it was moved and thus lacks a lot of southern facing windows.

Q. What’s your style of decorating?

Anna: Simple and comfortable.

Mark: We like older, good-quality pieces that go with the house. Many of our pieces are from family members. My parents gave us the leather couch in the living room and the wood end tables. Anna’s mom also gave us a couch for a wedding gift. That’s in the TV room. The dining room table is from Anna’s grandfather.

Anna: My mom grew up with this table. The chairs are done in Danish caning.

Q. Any family pieces in the upper level?

Mark: Yes, a number of them. In the master we have a cedar chest from my grandma at the end of the bed. My mother found one that is the same at an antique store and we bought it and have it in the same room.

Anna: A lot of our pieces have sentimental meaning behind them. But we also have pieces that aren’t from family members. The dresser in our bedroom was on clearance. We don’t like flashy. We like classic and simple pieces. We like things we’re not going to grow tired of.

Q. Do you have a favorite room?

Anna: Probably the kitchen. I can look outside and see the kids playing in the back while I’m cooking dinner.

Q. Did you redo the kitchen?

Anna: No, the kitchen and our two bathrooms were done by the previous owner. But we did replace the appliances in the kitchen. We have white cabinets, copper faucets and decorative copper on the ceilings as well as ceiling beams.

The counter top is blue Formica, we have a large double sink and there are large tiles on the backsplash.

Q. Any favorite amenities you added to the home?

Mark: We got a piece of 150-year-old red oak we were told was from Jones Island. Mark Porreca, owner of Mark Porreca Custom Build in Milwaukee, made it into a bench for our entryway. We also added an old piece of white oak to the wall and put antique hooks on it to hang our coats.

Do you, or does someone you know, have a cool, funky or exquisite living space that you’d like to see featured in At Home? Contact Fresh home and garden editor Nancy Stohs at (414) 224-2382 or email nstohs@journalsentinel.com.